In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music—its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it—and the human brain. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, Levitin reveals: • How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world • Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre • That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise • How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our heads
And, taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin argues that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. This Is Your Brain on Music is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.
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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Music & Your Brain and I mean EVERYTHING. The title pretty much says it all.
The book delves into studies done by the author and others on how the different aspects of music affect the various parts of the brain, and how the brain interprets the different qualities of music.
It is fairly complicated due to music's many components - from rhythm to timbre - and musical terminology. But the good news isthe reader does get enough information without getting trapped in the scientific data.
This would be much better as an audio book, due to the countless references to various songs and beats.
This updated and expanded edition of The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Music Theory breaks down a difficult subject in a simple way—even for those who think they have no rhythm or consider themselves tone deaf. With clear, concise language, it explains everything from bass-clef basics to confusing codas. This new edition includes:
-A brand-new CD -A comprehensive ear-training section -Musical examples of intervals, scales, chords, and rhythms -Aural exercises so readers can test their ear training and transcription skills
REVIEW
Well worth the money I have to admit I was reluctant to buy this book, because of its title. Never mind the title--it's well written. You don't have to be a complete idiot to understand this book; in fact, you shouldn't be. The author assumes you can think, but that you're coming in pretty close to the ground floor on knowing anything about the topic. I'm almost finished with the book, and I'm very happy I bought it.
By the way, I'm a musician, but with little or no theory background except what I've absorbed accidentally. This book has been really helpful in filling in the large gaps in my musical education.
Recognized as the finest survey of Western art music in the English language, this distinguished book has enlightened a multitude of music lovers since it first appeared in 1960. This handsome new edition incorporates the latest advances in music scholarship.
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Christmas Present This was a Christmas present for my wife. She sings and arranges music. I can only tell you that she is ecstatic about the book, and is excited at the prospect of going on line for the streaming music that comes with.
With his characteristic warmth and humor, Dr. Kevin Leman offers a practical guide to sex according to God's plan. This frank and practical book is a perfect resource for married and engaged couples. Now in softcover.
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My Favorite Book About Marriage! I LOVE THIS BOOK! I can't say enough good things about it. The author has a unique blend of humor, medical advice, marital advice and bluntness that makes it all somehow work. With a touchy subject like this (no pun intended), it could be an awkward topic. Not with this book! I actually couldn't put the book down. There was so much good information in it. The author's Christian perspective was great, but thankfully, it's not the kind to hit you over the head, so to speak. This is a fantastic book and couples of all stages will appreciate it.
Guitarists of all levels will find a wealth of practical music knowledge in this special book and CD package. Veteran guitarist and author Tom Kolb dispels the mysteries of music theory using plain and simple terms and diagrams. The accompanying CD provides 94 tracks of music examples, scales, modes, chords, ear training, and much more!
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gonna be very helpful I'm one of those who has to know every step on the way to big picture. For those who need to KNOW how to play rather than just bang it out.
Whether from a concert stage or at the front of a classroom, Roger Kamien knows how to reach an audience--blending intelligence and passion to lift music from the page and bring it to life. His unique combination of artistic and teaching skills makes Music: An Appreciation, Brief Edition an invaluable tool for students wanting to learn more about music..
. This best-selling textbook introduces students to perceptive listening and provides an engaging introduction to musical elements, forms, and stylistic periods. It is organized chronologically, but individual sections can be addressed in any order, for a variety of teaching approaches. Musical notation is included but is not required to understand the popular listening guides featured in the text, which focus students� attention on musical events as they unfold. .
. This edition moves most of the content of the companion multi-media CD-ROM to the Online Learning Center providing open access for all students to the many activities and video instrument demonstrations. .
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Music:An Appreciation, Brief Edition I was disappointed with the book I received only because it wasn't the ISBN number that I ordered. I placed the correct ISBN number in and it pulled up the correct book, however, it was not the book with the CD set. I placed the ISBN number in for the book with the CD set. The book I received had a TOTALLY different ISBN number for it. I am TRULY disappointed with this and will probably never order from Amazon again.
For fifteen years, All You Need to Know About the Music Business has been universally regarded as the definitive, essential guide to the music industry. Now in its sixth edition, it has been completely revised and updated with crucial, up-to-the-minute information on the industry's major changes in response to today's rapid technological advances and uncertain economy. Veteran music lawyer Donald Passman is in the thick of this transformation and understands that anyone involved in the music business is feeling the deep, far-reaching effects of it. This latest edition of what the Los Angeles Times called "the industry bible" will lead novices and experts alike through the fundamental practices as well as the new, uncharted territory of one of this country's most dynamic industries.
In the music business, the key to success lies in knowing how to protect yourself. To do that, you need the best and most up-to-date advice available. Whether you are -- or aspire to be -- a performer, writer, or executive, Passman's comprehensive guide to the legal and financial aspects of the music world is an indispensable tool. Drawing on his unique professional experience as one of the most trusted advisors in the industry, Passman offers authoritative information on how to:
Select and hire a winning team of advisors -- personal and business managers, agents, and attorneys -- and structure their commissions, percentages, and fees in away that will protect you and maximize these relationships
Master the big picture and the finer points of record deals
Navigate the ins and outs of songwriting, music publishing, and copyrights
Maximize concert, touring, and merchandising deals
This latest edition also includes information on:
Music downloads, webcasting, streaming-on-demand, and podcasting
The new video streaming services
How royalties are computed in the digital age
The latest developments in deals with independent labels, including upstream deals
Updates on all the traditional industry matters, such as royalties, advances, video budgets, and copyright law
In All You Need to Know About the Music Business, one of the industry's most influential figures shows you how to thrive in the most exciting business in the world. It's a book that no musician, entertainment lawyer, agent, promoter, publisher, manager, record company executive -- anyone who makes theirliving from music -- can afford to be without.
REVIEW
Don't get taken to the cleaners! The whole point of the book is to keep you from getting screwed, and it catalogs every possible way in which everyone in the music business - from record companies to publishers to promoters and everyone in between - can and will try to take a big chunk of your music earnings. It doesn't have sample contracts with long boring explanations, it just tells you the salient negotiating points and where various artists (emerging, mid-level, and superstars; majors vs. independent) generally end up in terms of compensation, what you should hold out for in your negotiations, etc.
Although the book reads like a 'parade of horribles' for the music industry, and may make you reconsider your desire to become involved in the business of music, the book is really intended for people who are going to be negotiating contracts with powerful interests. Passman gives you the confidence that, when and if the time comes where you have to negotiate important deals, you will have a place to turn to get an honest appraisal of the deal you are being offered, where it might be improved, what others are getting, etc.
Highly recommended for anyone in the business. If you are an artist with a "team" of professionals helping you (chapter one of the book discusses this team) this book really could be "all you need to know about the music business." If you are going to be on the employer side of the business creating contracts, the book still makes a great companion text to something like "This Business of Music" which includes sample contracts and more lengthy expositions but lacks the critical insights to protect your bottom line. If you are going the D.I.Y. route, this book is probably less important to you than Bob Baker's Guerilla Music Marketing Handbook, as promotion and publicity are everything at first, but it would still be a good reference tool, if only to prove to yourself you've made the right decision by rejecting the bad deals shady labels are offering you.
Based on Stephenie Meyer's popular vampire-romance novels, the movie Twilight is taking huge bites out of box office receipts across the country! Composer Carter Burwell is highly regarded for his scores for the Coen brothers movies. Here are piano solo arrangements of music he composed for this film, including the achingly beautiful "Bella's Lullaby" and ten more pieces: Dinner with His Family * Edward at Her Bed * I Dreamt of Edward * I Would Be the Meal * In Place of Someone You Love * The Lion Fell in Love with the Lamb * Phascination Phase * Stuck Here like Mom * Tracking * Who Are They?.
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Bella's Lullaby is NOT THE SAME! Whoever transcribed this score did an awful job. The chords for Bella's Lullaby don't match up atall with the music released on the soundtrack. As if that weren't annoying enough, the chords given sound... wrong, like they're in the wrong key or something. Honestly, you'll do better to find the few copies of user-created Bella's Lullaby floating around on the internet--those are much more faithful to the actual score.
I gave it two stars because the other music included sounds... okay. It's a lot of the same stuff over and over again--nothing very original. But since most people are going to buy this to learn Bella's Lullaby, I want to urge y'all to steer clear.
Amazon.com ReviewAmazon Best of the Month, December 2007: Legendary R&B icon Ray Charles claimed that he was "born with music inside me," and neurologist Oliver Sacks believes Ray may have been right. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain examines the extreme effects of music on the human brain and how lives can be utterly transformed by the simplest of harmonies. With clinical studies covering the tragic (individuals afflicted by an inability to connect with any melody) and triumphant (Alzheimer's patients who find order and comfort through music), Sacks provides an erudite look at the notion that humans are truly a "musical species." --Dave Callanan
REVIEW
Man, the musical animal Sacks does it again, merging clinical precision with insight and real affection for his patients. This time, he explores the biological foundations of music as a human experience. It turns out that music runs deep in the human brain and mind, as it does in possibly no other species. In his medical practice, Sacks has seen how music can heal, as in some Parkison's and psychiatric patients, or even harm, in rare cases where its rhythms can trigger seizures. It can reach in to patients blocked from normal communication, and it can help people reach out through stuttering or stroke-damaged failures of language. In some Tourette's patients, it can both drive creativity, and be used to channel the illness's effects away from harmful kinds of expression. It casts new light on Plato's draconian control over music in his idealized Republic - it really does have deep effect on the citizens' minds.
Since musical expression seems so deeply ingrained in the human nervous system, it seems surprising that people differ so much in how the experience it. Oddly, enjoyment and basic neurological faculties for music don't always go together. I'm one who "lack[s] some of the perceptual or cognitive abilities to appreciate music but nonetheless enjoy it hugely." I'm about as unmusical as anyone around, but usually have something playing - at least in my imagination. Others, even with fine senses of pitch or the formal nuances of music, might be quite indifferent. I found it helpful to see all the different parts of the musical sense, and to see how they fit together.
This book gives real insight into one of the most basic of human faculties. It's a study that has only recently claimed a place of its own in the scientific literature, possibly because it is so abstract and subjective. As a result, nearly everything that Sacks presents comes across as fresh knowledge. And, since it discusses parts of human nature that have rarely been discussed, it helped me to see my place in the range of human experience. My lack of musical ability has been an embarrassment, sometimes a painful one. I can, and do, enjoy it anyway, and my enjoyment is as real as anyone's.
With three millioncopies sold over nine editions, The Enjoyment of Music is the best-selling music appreciation text of all time. Spanning the Middle Ages through the twenty-first century, the text offers a thorough introduction to the elements of music, a broad overview of the history of musical styles, and fascinating cultural contexts and perspectives. The Tenth Edition of this classic text features a stunning new design, exciting new repertory, and an unmatched emedia and ancillary package.
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Cavat Emptor!!! Beware!! This book might come with the DVD, but it doesn't come with the accompanying CD. This is very inconvient and frustrating!!!
